Groupon lost a quarter of its market value yesterday after it admitted it was taking a smaller cut of revenue on its coupons to keep retailers interested.
The daily deals bazaar's stock dropped 24.78 per cent yesterday to $5.98 after its fourth quarter results were once again a disappointment to investors.
Critics have been …

Re: Soap bubble

This was forecast

This was forecast when they started, an unsustainable business model that does not make profit but increases losses year after year.

One interesting thought, how much do those at the top put in their pockets, bet the directors are getting nice bonuses and drive expensive cars. Still when it fails I am sure they will be protected, but I bet those who had already bought vouchers and the businesses that bought into the scheme will be the ones out of pocket.

has anyone used groupon in the uk? Ive never found anything of use on there (primarily because our city isnt listed). Searching for coupons in places I am visiting brings up the same tat that you see in motorway service booklets.

My wife uses it on occasion, much to my annoyance. I don't like eating out on vouchers. There are enough restaurants nearby offering walk-in deals of similar value and at least then I'm giving 100% of the money to the restaurant on their terms instead of whatever fraction Groupon gives them. I joke with her that she's killing restaurants because several have gone out of business soon after.

Selling vouchers to freeloaders does not generate repeat business and places which do it are obviously getting desperate. About the only businesses which can sustain this model are "services", car washes, eyebrow plucking etc. where there are few expenses. They can charge any bullshit price they like for their service pretend to "discount" it, give Groupon their cut and still walk away with money. That's why once Groupon has slashed and burned through a territory, all that's left is a wasteland of these crap offers.

Yes, but why use Groupon when you can use a search engine. It's similar to looking for something in only 1 book, when you could use an entire library. And that library is of course, rapidly searched and indexed.

You're not killing restaurants by using a coupon that the RESTAURANT put out! A groupon is no different than the restaurant employee standing on the corner handing out promo coupons to get you to go there.

You act like Groupon is forcing businesses to use them. I use Groupons (and Goldstar, Livingsocial, Amazon Local etc.) to try NEW restaurants. If the restaurant turns out to be crap I'm not out much. If it turns out wonderful I eat there regularly. A couple of my favorite restaurants that I frequent regularly I found through Groupon.

Some people are uncomfortable using a coupon that they PAID for and the restaurant PAID Groupon to promote. They seem to think they're accepting some sort of charity. Some people are not very bright.

@Andrew Moore: Re: Obvious

Re: Obvious

The few business owners I know who've used Groupon walked in with their eyes open and have got a lot out of it. But then they were selling 'experiences' so to them the cost of Groupon was relatively small, as they were incurring the overheads anyway.

In fact two of the business'es used the business drummed up by Groupon to train staff ie. to provide sufficient teaching hours for them to become fully qualified instructors!

But they all made sure that they got hold of the Groupon users contact details and hence were able to offer specific follow up offers etc.

Bet you wish

"A 25% fall in the share price is bad, but matching it with WIPED OUT in capitals is just dishonest"

Well unless you're challenging the common method of valuing listed companies on the basis of total equity times latest marginal price from trading, then 25% of their value was indeed wiped out.

Theorists may claim that the value is the sum of discounted future cash flows (or similar techniques), but in the real world value is simply the price the highest bidder is willing to pay and the vendor is willing to accept, so I'd suggest that the tabloid capitalisation aside, the orginal headline was entirely accurate.

Re: Bet you wish

Re: Bet you wish

Dirty

I've used it a couple of times, but not for ages. It was all rather painless but it just gives me a dirty feeling using it, it's obvioulsy a loss leader for the merchants and seems to be just another way of grabbing customer data.

I got my first bit of junkmail this monring to an e-mail address registered only with Groupon so the app has just got binned and unsubscribed from the emails that I didnt read any more anyway.

Re: WTF...

Re: WTF...

Great for the consumer awful for the end business. If I can get a meal for £20 with groupon do restuarants seriously think I'm going to go back for the same meal for £40 on the basis that £20 one was that good. Maybe some people work that way but I don't

What confuses me is that with groupon the punter gets a discount, so the restaurant/salon/life style club gets less money, then groupon take a cut so the restaurant/salon/lifestyle club gets even less money. Perhaps the restaurant/salon/lifestyle club would be better off offering their food/beautification/life style at a lower cost to start with???

Here you go, a Groupon Coupon for ...

"Since adopting the leaf as legal tender..."

Re: "Since adopting the leaf as legal tender..."

"But we have run into a small inflationary problem, owing to the high level of leaf availability. So I gather the going rate is something like 3 major deciduous forests to buy one ship's peanut. So to obviate this problem, and effectively revalue the leaf, I propose we take on a massive campaign of defoliation and, burn down all the forests."

Mason fired

Just been on there to look at todays best deals...

...same old stuff really: 50% off a fish foot-spa treatment, 70% off a 'celebrity experience' evening at a top London night club with Alan Tichmarsh, 65% off gastric bypasses... but what really caught my eye was this: 25% off Groupon shares!

G ypsies, magicians, and genies in bottles can disappear in a puff of smoke, as if they were never really there to begin with. Show dirt and bacteria a little magic trick of your own with today’s Groupon.

Without accurate, finely-tuned equipment, people would be forced to judge blood pressure by measuring the amount of steam pouring out of their ears. Keep explosive pressure under control with today’s Groupon.